Rescuing Her

Rescuing Her
Logan's POV

I had everything planned, every single detail covered. This wasn’t supposed to happen—Luca beating me to my own game. My pride—the most sacred thing to me—had been hurt. Yet, right now, I didn't give a passing thought to it as I sprinted madly through the crowd and towards the car. I would never forgive myself if anything bad happened to Rachel.
Fury sizzled through me, heating up my veins, my muscles quivering as I ran. I bit down hard on my lip until I tasted my own blood. I was angry at no one but myself. How could I have foolishly let this happen—let Rachel get snatched away? Draco wasn't wrong. I should never have risked her life for my plans. Not even if I were as sure as night and day.
I pulled the door to the SUV, jumping fast into it. Draco jumped into the other seat after me.
“What now?” he demanded, steel in his voice. He glared at me so hard I could feel the sting of his glare on my skin.
And for the first time in my life, someone’s thought of me affected me. My hands trembled as I struggled to fit the car key into the keyhole.
I deserve his hate—deserved every bit of anger he wanted to lash out at me. But I just hoped it would wait until we found her. I cared about her too—I fucking do.
“Get your fucking acts together, fool,” Draco yelled at me, his voice snapping through me like a whip.
Fuck. What was happening to me? I forced control back into my fingers, and I pushed the key into the keyhole, starting up the engine. I felt my fingers trembling over the steering wheel too, as I reversed the car clumsily to steer the car into the road. I almost hit a group of students. They screamed behind the car, scampering into the safety of the college field.
Draco snatched the steering wheel from me, and I stepped forcefully on the brake before we could skid off the school’s parking lot.
He snatched my collar, pulling me so fast towards him that I was looking straight into the fury in his eyes. His palm collided fast against my cheek, and a sharp pain jarred through my head, ringing in my skull like an alarm clock on vibration. He pulled me further into him—his fingers trembling around my collar. He could barely keep himself together too.
“You should get a grip on yourself, fool. You are the most composed of both of us and the only one that knows how to save her. Save her, or else, if anything bad happens to her, you would be the first person I’d kill, before I even think of Luca,” he screamed into my face.
His palm thudded against my cheek again, sending another sharp pain sizzling through every nerve in my head, the pain vibrating my skull. Then he threw me back to the steering wheel.
“Drive!” he screamed.
Perhaps I needed that slap. Because the moment I grabbed onto the steering wheel, my finger stopped trembling.
“What next?” he demanded, his fury clinging tight to his voice.
I snatched my phone from the glove box. But he snatched it from my hands, his fingers trembling around it.
“Drive,” he snapped. And I whipped my gaze back to the road as I steered the car fast out of the school. “What do you want me to do on the phone?” He asked.
“Go to the tracking app, and transfer the GPS coordinates of Rachel's location to the car’s navigation system.” I told him while I drove down the road leading out of the school.
He leaned low to the car’s navigation screen to do as I asked.
By the time I got to the end of the street, he was leaning away from the screen. “I have done as you asked,”
“Now, let's pray the bastards do not know of the tracker in her purse.” I commented as I glanced at the screen. I accelerated quickly with a forceful swerve into the next available bend as instructed by the car’s navigation system.
I don't believe in prayers. I was never even a religious person, but as I drove fast through cars as much as I could dare, following the route provided on the navigation screen, I said a prayer to God, or whoever was up there. Luca should not fucking think about the purse. That was the only lifeline I still clung to.
Damn, I grunted, clenching my teeth hard, when we approached an intersection. I eased the car gently, tapping at the steering wheel with my fingers.
I peered outside, to the traffic light, wishing the fucking device was flashing green instead of red. A couple walked slowly down the crossing before the car, just as another one was preparing to cross.
Draco glared beyond the windscreen. “Why in hell are you waiting?” he yelled at me.
I nudged at the traffic light. Wasn't it obvious?
“If you don't get the car moving, Logan, and moving faster, I will be pushing your ass down and driving this myself,” he snarled at me.
“But we don't want the cops—” I paused. Draco wasn't wrong. It was the fucking cops over Rachel's life. Damn the fucking cops.
I pressed down on the car horn, letting it blare loudly and continuously to scare the pedestrians off the road. The instant they scampered out of the road, I stepped on the gas pedal, sending the car on a mad sprint into the next street.
I had no idea how fast I was going. 80mph an hour, 100, 110, 120—I had no damn idea, but I knew I was going at a speed that could get us killed at the slightest mistake. Yet, for some reason I didn't care—every inhibition was broken, thanks to Draco. I would never have thought he would be the voice of reason. Now he fucking was.
I pressed down harder on the gas pedal, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. My gaze jumped consecutively between the navigation screen and the windscreen. Damn the corps. Damn the government. Damn, Luca. Damn anyone. We had to get Rachel before the bastard touched even a hair on her head.
We braked to a sudden halt in the middle of another busy intersection as the car navigation system announced with a loud ding that we had arrived at our destination.
“Now what? Which fucking road is it?” Draco demanded again, starting fast from his seat. “She isn't fucking here, and this is a fucking intersection.”
“Don't you think I fucking know that?” I snapped back at him. Then I turned away from him, my chin trembling as I carried my gaze around to the roads on all sides and to the shops and buildings looming endlessly in all directions.
I observed the nearest shops on all the roads connected to the intersection until I found one with a CCTV that was steered directly into the intersection. “I am coming,” I said to Draco, jumping out of the car.
But he jumped out after me, running to my side. “Whatever you want to do, you have to fucking carry me—” He was yelling at me when suddenly a gunshot split the air, echoing in the still air. For that moment that it rang and echoed, it drowned out every noise of the traffic.
Draco traded stares with me. We both knew who that might be—Luca. No one would go around shooting in a fucking afternoon, and especially in the same area where the tracker led us to.
The echoing noise helped us trace the direction of the gunshot, and we ran madly into the streets it had rung from, slipping through incoming vehicles.
A motorbike braked forcefully before me, nearly running me over into the sidewalk. Saved by a last-minute jump onto the sidewalk, I would have been rolling along the asphalt with a broken knee.
I didn't spare the bewildered biker even a glance as I charged down the street. My lungs were on fire, and my heart was thrashing against my chest so much I could almost hear it beat in my ears. What if that gunshot was for her? What if she had been shot?
Then I spotted a Toyota sedan far down the road. Someone ran from the car, arms thrust outward, fingers clasped around a gun. I recognized the face cap, the cashmere sweater, and the pants—it was the fucking boy that took Rachel.
He was running fast to take a bend ahead into another street, his gun scaring the people on the sidewalk away from him. There was only one person he would be chasing—Rachel. Then my gaze fell on the path he was taking, and I saw it—blood, a whole lot of it, making a long continuous trail ahead of him into the bend—Rachel was injured.
The mere thought of that sent fury rippling through me. I felt myself almost explode. I searched my pockets for a gun. Damn the police. I wouldn't hesitate to shoot the boy down right now. I grunted when my search came up empty. Fuck, I don't have one.
I didn't need to bother, because Draco was pointing a gun at the boy now. For one of the few times in our lives, I was fucking glad he was reckless enough to bring a gun along.
He pulled the trigger, but the bullets sailed an inch above the boy's head. It dug a hole into the brick wall just near the boy's head, raining plaster and dust around the boy.
The boy had just one glance at us, and he quickly ducked Draco's second shot. He abandoned the chase and ran fast back to the sedan. Gunshots rang continuously in the air as Draco chased after him.
I sprinted instead for the bend to get Rachel. I spotted her limping down the street, clutching her stomach and leg. Her clothes were torn, blood forming dark patches over the torn areas of her blouse and pants.
She was moving so slowly, I caught up with her before long. I grabbed her shoulders, spinning her around to me. But she was throwing her bloodied arms at my face, trying to claw down my face with her fingers.
“It's me, Rachel.” I whispered to her as I caught her arms in the air.
She stopped then, our hands frozen together in the air. A bruised, pulpy mass of bloodied flesh on her forehead pulsed as her blood-stained face crumbled into a sad smile. “Logan,” she screamed, and she collapsed into my arms. I felt hot moisture staining my jacket, and she sobbed, loud, slow sobs that wrenched at the strings of my heart, making it ache so badly I nearly winced in pain.
My hands folded into tight fists beside me, pulsing. I swore to myself to make sure Luca dies in the cruelest way possible.
Draco's hands suddenly shot out from behind me, and he steered her away from me to his chest, hugging her tight to himself, while she cried onto his chest too.
I stared at them, my arms quivering, adrenaline pumping through me like hot burning liquid. That Draco was here alone meant Luca had escaped again—the bastard was still fucking loose. But he won't be for long. I promised myself again as I dialed for an ambulance.